


hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, through eden

by LittleTayy



Category: His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23170339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleTayy/pseuds/LittleTayy
Summary: A moment in time between two lovers.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52





	1. Murder?

**Author's Note:**

> A short little ficlet that didn't fit anywhere else in my writing but that I still wanted to share. This may become a collection of little drabbles and ficlets, for pieces that don't fit in with my main stories. 
> 
> For now, I hope you enjoy.

“It's all going to change.” 

Asriel frowned blearily, turning his head to gaze at his lover. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, silk robe wrapped tightly around her as her gaze focused out of the window. Her back was towards him but Asriel had heard her clearly. 

“What is?” He asked, voice still rough from sleep. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, gaze drifting towards Stelmaria and the Monkey, curled up together, beside the bed. 

Marisa turned, loose hair falling over her shoulder as she looked at him. Her blue eyes were bright with worry and fear. Asriel softened only slightly, crawling up towards her and settling behind her on the bed. He watched her sigh, turning away from him, glancing downwards. 

“Everything,” Marisa insisted, her hand smoothing over the growing swell of her stomach. “This child will change everything Asriel. What am I to do?” She continued, reticence clear in her voice. 

His arms wrapped solidly around her, his face nuzzling into her soft, loose hair. “It doesn't have to,” he murmured to her, his hand slipping beneath her silk robe and settling on the growing baby bump. 

He'd marvelled, when he'd seen her. A month away had truly changed her figure and though it would be hard for anyone else to tell, Asriel knew every inch of her body intimately. The child growing inside her was getting harder and harder to hide. The rush of pride he'd felt upon seeing her body, the rounded swell of her stomach, the lushness of her breasts, had surprised him. He had done that to her and she was going to bear him a child; the very thought tugging eagerly at his ego. 

Though he felt all that he'd never say such words to her. The situation was a precarious one and unfortunately, Edward Coulter was no fool. Her husband posed a problem but Asriel had never let that stop him before. A child was nothing he'd considered previously, had only ever been thought of as a nuisance; but he would have one now and only with her. 

“Of course it does, Asriel,” Marisa replied, a well hidden note of worry in her tone. Asriel though, who knew her so thoroughly, heard it clearly. “How can it not?” 

His arms tightened around her as he pressed flush against her back. His lips found her shoulder, her neck, her cheek. He shifted slightly, so he could face her as a hand came up to turn her face to his. 

“You could raise the child as Edward’s,” Asriel suggested, detesting the words as he spoke them. He had too much pride to allow another man to give his name to and raise his child. “Or you can leave Edward, be my wife and we shall raise our child together.” 

Marisa frowned, a hand clutching his forearm as it wrapped around her. “We can't raise a child, Asriel,” she whispered back, almost fearfully. “I am no mother.”

“Then we shall hire a Governess,” Asriel scoffed. His eyes found hers, their gazes connecting as he stroked a hand down her cheek softly. “I do not wish to be parted from you, Marisa. Or our child,” he confessed to her, leaning close until their foreheads met. 

“I couldn't- _we_ couldn't! The Magisterium would never allow it,” Marisa murmured fervently, shaking her head even as her heart soared at the words. 

“Then I shall kill him,” Asriel replied firmly and astutely. “Whisk you and the babe away before any harm befalls you,” he continued, eyes glistening with nerve and impulse. 

“You would kill for me?” Marisa asked in astonishment, body tingling with lust and love at his declarations. 

“For you and our child? Yes,” Asriel replied, certainly, a smirk settling on his features. 

He watched Marisa for a moment, trying to read her face. She surprised him with a hot, passionate kiss. His hand cupped her cheek, keeping her close as he kissed her back. 

“I want you Asriel,” she murmured breathlessly against his lips. “All of you. To marry you. To have your child,” she muttered out between kisses. She pulled back then, only their foreheads touching as she panted, their breath mingling and her eyes found his. “Kill him, Asriel, if you must. I am yours,” Marisa cooed to him, hands holding him tightly. 

Asriel simply grinned, capturing her lips in another brutal kiss. 


	2. Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marisa gives birth and Asriel has a bout of sentimentality when naming Lyra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it great? Not particularly. But it begged to be written and did not fit in any of my other stories.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Marisa groans out through gritted teeth. Her hands were curled tightly around the end of the bed and she could feel her hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks. Pain seared through her body and though she hated it, tears came to her eyes - even as she rocked backwards, knees bent as she felt the urge to bear down. 

Towels were beneath her and spread across the bed. The bath Maggie Costa had suggested hadn’t worked and now, here she stood in the middle of Asriel’s bedroom, a dowdy nightgown barely covering her as a child ripped her apart just to be born. A hand pressed a rag to her forehead and she whipped her hand up to swat it away, not caring in the least who it was; Gyptian woman or insufferable lover. 

Eyes closed, the pain receded for a moment and she gasped, resting her forehead on her hands. She tried not to sob but she was exhausted, her body was trembling and all she could think about was getting the babe out of her and sleeping. She could feel her Monkey fretting from the balcony, peering into the master bedroom frantically but she would not let him in. This was his fault, after all, letting her succumb to her baser instincts. 

“Are you alright?” A smooth voice asked from beside her. 

Her head whipped around fast, scowl firmly in place until she saw who had asked. Her features softened, only marginally as she set eyes on Stelmaria. Until of course another contraction shot through her. 

“Bloody hell!” she cried out, feeling the baby moving inside of her, getting lower and lower. 

“I need to check you,” Maggie Costa said, coming over to her side though refraining from touching her. “Come to the bed,” she instructed, gesturing for the young woman to follow her to the side of the bed. 

Reluctantly Marisa followed her, red cheeked and slightly breathless as she climbed onto the bed. The cursed bed that had no doubt left her in her current condition. And now here she was, splayed out on the bed with some Gyptian woman gazing between her legs. Wonderful moments of pleasure really had turned into a horror story. 

“You’re ready,” Maggie Costa nodded, as Asriel appeared by the blonde woman’s side and Marisa could’ve _kicked_ him. 

“Don’t you dare!” She growled, blue eyes piercing his angrily. She would not have him seeing her like this; him just being in the room was trying her sensibilities enough. 

“When I tell you to push, push.” 

And so she did, each time the blonde woman urged her on. 

Marisa could feel the baby slipping out of her, chin to chest as she pushed down and her hands gripped the towel beneath her. The pain was excruciating, even with the Gyptian remedies Maggie Costa had provided. She could hear the Gyptian woman urging her on and rather involuntarily, Marisa did as she was told and gave one final, heaving push. 

She gasped, a moment passed and then she heard a shrill cry fill the room. 

Eyes wide, Marisa’s gaze fell instantly to the baby in Maggie Costa’s hands. It was a small thing, red and purple and squalling as the Gyptian woman patted the babe’s back and started to clean it up. The blonde wrapped the baby in the fluffiest towel available that was still clean as Marisa and Asriel simply stared. 

“You should hold her.”

“Her?” Marisa murmured, still transfixed in equal amounts wonder and horror at the fact the squirming little creature had just been expelled from inside her. 

Maggie Costa nodded, extending her arms to Marisa. “It seems you have a daughter, Mrs. Coulter.”

The babe was finally in her arms and Marisa clutched her tightly, unsure what else to do as she gazed down at her _child_. Her child, a daughter. A daughter with a little snow leopard cub for a daemon and Asriel’s eyes and chin and nose. 

Her body tensed once again and she was pulled from her thoughts. “The afterbirth,” Maggie Costa started. “You’ll have to push it out, just as you did with the babe,” the blonde woman continued as she went about cutting the cord connecting Marisa to the baby. She tied the ends and then waited for the afterbirth before cleaning up as best she could. 

“I’ll let you settle,” Maggie Costa told them, making her way out of the room as quickly as possibly. 

“We have a daughter,” Marisa murmured, tears pooling in her eyes unbidden as her head turned and her gaze found Asriel’s. He looked just as wondrous and curious as she had only moments before. He came closer, tentatively reaching out a hand to stroke the child’s downy head. “She looks like you…”

“She is lovely,” Asriel said softly, gaze fixed on the baby in his lover's arms. “She needs a name…” he mused softly, caressing the little girl as gently as he was capable of. Already a few family names came to mind. 

“I...I don’t know. I don’t want her named after my mother though, or yours,” Marisa told him after a moment, wracking her brain to try and come up with a suitable name for their daughter. “Any child of ours should have a unique name. A name that’s all her own,” Marisa insisted, gazing up at Asriel for a moment before her eyes fell back down to gaze at her daughter. 

She was a _mother_ and the very thought was foreign to her. A child had not been in her plans, though she’d known eventually she would have to bear one. The only surprise to her really was who had fathered her child. 

Marisa was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Asriel settling on the bed beside her; a hand smoothing over her back and the other stroking their little girl’s soft cheek. “Lyra,” Asriel breathed, keeping his voice low as he looked down at the child. Taken in by every minute feature of the child, dazed in a way he so very rarely was. “Her name should be Lyra,” he insisted then, with a firm nod. 

A smile spread across Marisa’s features as she looked down at their daughter for a long moment. “It suits her,” she agrees. Then chuckles a little as a memory surfaces in her mind. “The constellation you tried to test me on because you didn’t think I knew about the stars... Ridiculous,” she mused with a light laugh and a shake of her head. 

“And the daemon?” He asked, finally acknowledging Stelmaria’s curious gaze. 

They were both surprised when Stelmaria turned towards the Golden Monkey, the daemons whispering together - the Monkey casting cautious glances at Marisa and the child - before speaking. 

“Pantalaimon,” Stelmaria’s regal voice informed them. The name was perfect, just as Lyra had been.


End file.
